BROADSIDE: Ein neues Lied, von der Mord Geschichte des Joseph Miller welcher in Januar 1822, einer Sonntags Nacht,yseine Schwangere Frau unde zwei Kinder auf eine grausame Art ermordet und sich selbst erheng, welches alles wie man glaubt, aus Armuth Geschah.
np: s.n [1822].
Price: $650.00
About the item
Song in sixteen stanzas; first line: Höret, ich thu euch erzählen Text in two columns; printed area, including ornamental border. 1 page. 16 stanzas, In 2 columns, with ornamental border. 18 x 7-1/2 inches. Old folds. OCLC. 438092472; Not in Shaw & Shoemaker.
Item #345851
This sixteen-stanza "New Song of the Murder-Story of Joseph Miller" is attributed to Johannes Koppelberger. It tells the sad story of a murder-suicide committed by Miller, a German-American. The verses say he eloped from Poland with the daughter of a nobleman in 1817. The couple made their way to Philadelphia and from there to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, where Miller found work as a schoolteacher. The job paid poorly and his wife was increasingly homesick. Depressed, Miller killed his pregnant wife, two children with an ax and himself. It was a grisly affair involving and axe and a knife. This poem was quite popular and issued in a number of different broadside formats. According to Wellenreuter, there were, in all, 16 printings. Wellenreuther, Citizens in a Strange Land: A Study of German-American Broadsides and Their Meaning for German Americans.
